moving from the visionary's imagination into view that all of us may learn to see further

20061212

Ritual Journeys Issue #5 December 2006

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Ritual gives form to meaning(every wiseman's son doth know).Every act from which we're gleaning,Every sack that we must sowGives rise to tides that make us wise;Gives humor chance for binding wounds.Does good these ancient weary eyesTo dance abandoned round the moon.

"Milky Way" by Cat Whipple. Copyright 2004

"Harbinger" (c) Steven Shorts, 2006

The Music of Eld.

In olden days they lingered at the edge of evening,lovers of beauty and players of strange pipes and harps:although I remember, in my youth, being toldnot to listen to the outre songs they sangfor, the visiting Friar insisted,the Children of the Twilight had no mortal souls or hearts,- being not of Adam's fleshnor having tasted Eve's sweet milk,though just who their primal mother or father might behe would not say, Pan perhaps or Satan himself,that fell to Earth on leaden wingsto teach to Man forbidden things...

But being young and holding all authority in scorn,I heeded not the Friar's wordsand often wandered in the hillsat the time of gloaming and duskwhere day's last ribbons linger stillto greet the light the first stars bring...and oft I sat, my soul entranced,to hear that weird music ring, mystical and wonderful,over hillsides thick with shadowand over my young mortal soultraipsed such rare and wonderful things- ancient joys and ancient sorrowsI could not put a name to,though the Church might call them 'folly' or 'sin',ters I find as inaccurate todayas I did even then...

Once, enamored of that alien music,I crept with careful stealth and skill,through dark glade and o'er dark hillto where, within a ring of stonesI saw where elfin maidens dancedas goat-hooved minstrels played a jigon weird pipes and fiddle-stringsand in my breast my heart grew wingsand, alas, my ankles toofor up I leapt to join the throngbut just to see the elf maids laughand turn as if to vaporous gas- though the goat-hooved lads proved solid stilland beat me for my churlish painsso when next morn a farmer found melaying in a ditch of rainI was sore bruised from head to toeand though I never more did goand seek to gaze upon that folk,their music lingers in my brainand laying in my bed at nightI still can hear its wild refrainand restlessness comes to my toesso that I have to grip my bedwith two strong hands and thoughts of leadin case my wayward feet are ledto follow where the Twilight Folksing and dance beneath the starswhere even saints and the blessed deadmight hesitate to wanderif they had seen what I had seenand glimpsed the face of that fair Queen,so mischievous and mocking...

November, Pattaya.

copyright Willowdown

(c) Aaron Staengl

Ankhor Wat.

I fell in love with you ten thousand years agoin the infancy of the world,in the age of common miraclewhen the oceans were young with laughterand the ancient forests green and tender.We walked on golden sand still warmwith the kiss of the very first dawn,the birds that flew above our headsdriven to intoxicated song by the touchof the Creator's hand warm against their fleshas He molded their breasts and wingsand breathed flight into them.

We saw the dance of the ecstatic rainbow-sylphsabove the glass and diamond cities of the Spider-peoplewho governed the world when the Deluge receded,as raindrops like jewels of liquid firesheathed the gossamer aerial fretworkof their fantasies and dreams with halos and patinasborrowed from the ether- needle spires of turquoise, ruby, sapphire and topaz,minarets of black opal and white diamond,staircases of rose-coloured marble,balconies of filligreed silver,delicate windows that opened onto myriads and myriadsof fey and outre Otherworldspeopled by giant telepathic butterflies,super-intelligent porpoise or intricate crystalsof cosmically aware salts arranged inever-changing mandalas and pictograms of sentient structure.

Today those ancient Kingdoms are written into and constitutecommonplace parts of the genetic code of men and womenand numerous other species scattered throughout the Holoverse- but in those days they were giant and tangible realitiespeopled by the hidden Energies that later came to be knownas Angels, Demons and Djinn.

We played with Christ and Lucifer on the lawns of the Morningas the stars of Twilight spun above their dreaming cotsand Danu suckled them at her two swollen breasts,one milky white, the other black as ebony.We sat in awe and gazed at the soft effulgence streamingfrom the face of the Feminine Principlesoftly shadowed by the living crown of her hairwherein a thousand million planets and solar-systemsdanced and twinkled merrily;we listened and marvelled at the music that Her Handmaidens playedon heavenly lutes, flutes, harps, sitars and harmonicas.

We ran with Shiva and Krsna over emerald meadowswith grass as tall as mountains and dew-dropsas vast as life-teeming oceans.I held your perfect hand in mine as we joyfully approachedthe Throne of our Father to receive His Blessingand be picked up to sit upon His lotus-blossomed lap.The Gods and Goddesses of a thousand mythologieswere our playmates and companions:Agni and Artemis, Indra and Hephaetos,Apollo, Freya, Ishtar and Chrysanthemum.

On a morning that lasted for centuries of what counts as time for men,we watched the rising and subsequent fall of Mu and Atlantisand when, at noon of that same day, the bright civilisationsof China and India flowered and opened their delicate petals to the sun,we clapped our hands and listened in delightto the songs and prayers of their Rsi's and Immortals,the haiku of courtly nobles, the tiny jewelled poems of Li Po and Tu Fu.We admired the cave-painting of early man in hisunderground cathedrals of rock and stoneand followed the progress of Michaelangelo as he painted the ceilingof the Cistine chapel with his vision.We witnessed the atrocities of Genghiz Khan, Hitler, Pol Potand the other little men who tried to fashion the worldin the shapes of their tiny desires and philosophies;we cried in pity at the white flowers of cancerburning in the hearts and souls of women and meneven as we admired their pure and ineffable beauty.

As I stood in Ankhor Wat surrounded by a thousand sleeping and dreaming Gods,my eyes full of burning tears,I turned to find some comfort in your familiar gaze- but you were gone!The monsoon rains fell upon me there as I stood for hours, months, years:the warm wet tears of thousands upon thousands of deities and divinities,thousands upon thousands of women, children and menThe endless monsoon rain fell upon me as I stood numb,amazed, transfixed, astounded, terrified, lost...

Where had you fled to?where had you vanished?who had snatched you from my side in the golden afternoon- was I awake or dreaming;was all of this creation a micro-thin bubble that might burst at any moment,a phantasmal film of soapy colour painted upon nothing?

I fell in love with you ten thousand years agoin the infancy of the world,in the age of common miraclewhen the oceans were young with laughterand the ancient forests green and tender.As I sit now in this tiny dingy roomin the delapidated heart of Old Saigonand listen to the endless traffic outside my windowand the whining of the dirty fan above my headI wonder if this little dream will ever endand I try to imagine your familiar voicecalling to me over the gleaming liquid emeraldsof the rice paddies.I look to the sun between the wooden window slatsbut it is shrouded by a dull brownish hazeand there is a ring of black fire burning at its rim.I hear the sounds and voices of a thousand other worldscome and go between the squealing of brakes,the honking of horns, the ringing of bicycle bells,the cries of food-vendors, the clamour and clangourof yet another evening.I lay down upon my narrow bedbut it is still far too early to sleep...

copyright Willowdown

"Twilight" (c) Steven Shorts, 2006

Evening's Shadows.

When evening's shadows brushed my soul with their velvet lipsI lay upon my bed of dreams,scattered with twilight's cushions,and watched the tiny stars that stole out from the earthto stream across the horizonand whisper their familiar tales within my ears.Who can count the years or tears the many stars have witnessed,the tragedies and passions with which they regale my sensesas the universe and Time wheel over meas the active world sleeps- or is does it also listen to the songs of the stars?

They tell me of the seven white swans who ascendedto Heaven to meet celestial mates;and the seven bright stars who fell in lovewith seven silvery riversand threw themselves to earth to woo them;they tell me the ancient tale of the swarming firefliesthat flew out of the heart of God to become the original Sunswhose children are the stars,and the dragons and salamanders they slowly incubate in theirwhite hot, molten wombs before depositing themin the brains of prophets, poets and children.

They tell me of empires already in their dotagewhen Mu first reared its battlementsout of the ancient Pacific slime;of the Sun that so loved one of its planet's moonsthat it bent down low to kiss her- at which the maidenly moon demurely retreatedand fell into the planet's ocean,shattering into a thousand fragmentsand extinquishing all life upon that world .

They tell me of the race of Elveswho left the Earth in her infancyto travel to her invisible sister planeton the far side of the Moon,forever hidden to the eyes of menby the darkness of spaceand the shadows on their hearts.

They tell me of lovers and poets,artists and shaman-warriors;architects, dreamers and gardeners;sailors on uncharted seas,doomed voyages and unlikely heroes- and when the Morning comesand Sleep finally enters my grey and mortal brain,when the sordid Sun comes knocking at my doorwith his realistic truths and overbright colours,they quietly steal back into the earthand the infinite spaces hidden within her breast,whilst I must dress myself in the gaudy tatters of dayand stumble through this weary waking life,a comet on some peculiar fitful orbit,now flaring brightly,now barely visible against thebright darkness of noon...

But come the gentle evening again,then purple shadows brush my soul with their velvet lipsand I lay upon my bed of dreams,scattered with twilight's cushionsand the flower of my heart opens its petalsto the perfumed songs of Infinityand the siren blossoms of the stars.

From the Australian Aborigines' dreaming camps to the Senoi dream councils of Malaysia to Native American vision quests, traditional ceremonies have existed for ages as a way of entering and exiting the multidimensional "dreamtime". What do we mean by dreamtime? More "civilized" cultures certainly know what it's like to go to sleep and dream. In these dreams, we are sometimes aware of a "dream self" engaged in various activities in the "dreamland" it inhabits. Now, according to many native peoples, when we awake the next morning it is because this previous dream self went to sleep (in its dreamtime) in order to dream us into being. Ancient dream theory tells us we are all dreaming and/or being dreamed amidst the dreamtime.

A ritual is any external (kinetic) activity capable of catalyzing, at will, specific internal (psychic) states of consciousness. Dreaming rituals are designed by piecing actual dream remnants together for the purpose of energizing the "dreamstate" into consciousness while awake. Dreaming rituals have been done for any combination of the following four reasons:

1. Spiritual: to know unity between "dreamtime" and "daytime" realities.2. Psychic: to enter the dream with the intention of stalking movements.3. Emotional: to bypass psychological interpretation in lieu of catharsis.4. Physical: to express the dream essence through the body in action.

Those wishing to test their inner sense, or intuition, with dreams may do so by considering the following step-by-step ritual instructions and suggestions. The ritual is kinetic; to do it, you have to move your body. The approach is non-interpretive; it does not require that you know (or try and figure out) what your dream "means". By relaxing the search for meaning, an inherent design may eventually emerge on its own. There is also nothing you need to believe in or disbelieve for this to work.

The Dream Task Itself

You will need enough dream memory to recall a movement. It can be any movement at all... like a windblown cloud... or a slithering snake... or the slightest turn of your head. It doesn't have to be executed by your dreamself; it just has to originate in your dream. The main thing to remember is to select a movement you can physically duplicate upon waking the next morning. This movement will be your Dream Task. By practicing it throughout the day (at least three times), the body can absorb it as memory for future recall to energize, or charge, the actual ritual later on.

The best time to do your Dream Task is anytime. If you're doing it with other dreamers, do it in front of each other. If you do it alone, you may want to engage privately (unless you don't mind expressing socially incongruous gestures in the midst of innocent people watching on) or, maybe you simply don't wish to explain yourself.

As you do your Dream Task, stay as close as you can to the way it actually happened in your dream. This will help contain the power of the dream that activates the dreaming ritual later on. As you perform your movement, it may trigger memories and/or emotions associated with the dream. If this happens, just take a deep breath and continue executing the task. (Breathing is a good way to register whatever state you're in, dreaming or awake.) Remember, we are not searching for meaning here but stalking dream movements and replicating them upon waking without embellishment.

When the day is over ask yourself to remember a new dream movement before going to sleep again. When you awake the next morning, execute this motion immediately before doing anything else. (If and when dream memory falters, lie still in bed a few minutes... listening and paying attention to whatever comes up.) Do this new movement throughout the day, just like you practiced the other one. When it's time to go to sleep again, stalk one more movement and practice it the next day. By this time, you will have three separate movements drawn from actual dreams. They can be from separate dreams or, if you remember more than one, from the same dream. All three movements are associated by the virtue of their common link with the dreamtime. By repeating these Dream Tasks every day, strands of your dreams begin their weave into the fabric of your daily life. You are now ready to combine all three movements and activate the dreaming ritual itself.

On Ritual Preparations

Three movements are used to reflect the mythic, or story, device of a beginning, middle and end. When you have practiced three separate dream movements, you are ready to enter the movement cycle that energizes the Dreamtime Ritual. You can do so as soon as you find or create a controlled setting... any indoor or outdoor place where you will not be interrupted for about an hour or so. Arrange the setting to ensure the greatest sense of privacy and safety for yourself. A ritual works when you can be vulnerable enough to be influenced by the force(s) you are summoning, in this case the force of the dreamtime. Do whatever you can to own the space of this setting and sanctify it for this purpose (sometimes candles, incense and personal icons can help do this). After you have prepared the space, practice each movement separately to refresh your kinetic memory... so your body knows each one by heart. (For details on a more thorough ritual preparation, see principles and techniques.)

On Building the Movement Cycle

We start by "stitching" the end of the first movement to the beginning of the second movement to form a longer movement combining the two. Practice this for about two minutes. Then, stitch the end of the second movement to the beginning of the third to create a new movement combining all three together. Practice this until your body has memorized it. Finally, make a total movement cycle by connecting the end of the third motion to the start of the first one. Practice this movement cycle until it becomes its own dance expressing its own rhythms. Let these rhythms emerge and influence the form and design of the dance. Keep dancing and following its innate waves and pulses... letting them move you towards its own kind of altered state. Allow any dream memory or feeling to come up as you move deeper into its ongoing motion.

No-Form: On Charging the Ritual

Visually and physically, mark a large egg-shaped oval on the floor before you; spacious enough to move freely in. Stand outside the oval while facing its center. Enter a meditative state wherein you empty your mind of all thoughts and allow yourself to BE NOTHING. From this "potential void state", what I will call No-Form, send everything you know and don't know about dreams into the space of the oval setting. Get a sense of the space being filled with "the stuff of dreams." Now, send your kinetic memory of the movement cycle you just finished inside to mix with the dream. Return to No-Form. Relax your desire to control any outcomes and allow the dreamstate its own life in the space before you.

After giving yourself over to No-Form (enough to experience a profound state of receptivity), enter the charged "dream" space and allow its force to enter you. Then, begin the first part of your movement cycle. (Note: Your movement cycle may not proceed at the exact same pace, form or rhythm due to the additional "dream charge".) Allow yourself to be moved through the cycle by the force of the dreaming itself. Do not direct this force but let it guide you. Create space for it to direct you through the movement cycle... over and over again.

The point here is to keep following through with the movement cycle while your consciousness is flooded with the dreaming. Allow any images and emotions to flow up and influence you. Stay with this until you personally feel finished, and then exit the circle to re-enter No-Form. Take some time emptying out... of not being anything... releasing the dream back to its source. When you feel more "neutral" again, i.e. not identified with the dream state. The ritual is over.

Closure: On Integrating the Ritual

If you can, write down your experiences and/or talk about them with others. This can help integrate the more intuitive "depth experience" with your interpretive, conceptual mind. It will also help create a transition from the dreamtime back into the daytime with all of its incumbent responsibilities. The No-Mind state expresses an essential transition between the dreamtime and daytime, without which you may just wander around under the influence of the dreamstate. This is not so bad in itself unless you wish to return to present time and live your real life. It is also not a good idea to drive an automobile and/or operate machinery under the influence of the omnipresent dreamtime.

There are many ritual variations each culture has within its own dreaming traditions and many more versions with each individual response to them. The significance of ritualizing our dreams is highly personal. I believe the actual meaning of the dreaming ritual (and dreams) comes from the dream itself, rather than what conceptual mind decides about it. Experience has shown me, time and time again, that the degree of commitment shown in the ritual preparations determines the quality and depth of the outcome. As we consciously participate in dreaming enactment, a living ritual is born.

"Liquid Enigma" (c) Craig Blair

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Alchemy

(c) 2006 By Terra Wolfe

Pile offerings high on the long table.Make the candles blaze.

Wine has bubbled over the sacrificial animal,scented with herbs,circled with roots.

The sound of dishesIn a restaurant clatteringfrom table to table,and the sound of my parents' voicescold in the air outsidefull of globed breaths.

It was winter.A new peace settled in me,as if I were looking forward to something.

30 years later,I look backwards,at the endings--Maryyou walked with me.I remember your voiceas we crossed the boardwalk,always present-tense,In the here and now."I don’t understandwhy I have these afflictions," you said.

single now, I walkthrough red, sorrowful days,my only connectionsto books and trees.

I wonderhalf-magical invisible-handed death,blind eyes,cold faced---do you know each of usas we are known?

No one has opened upthe doors of the next world early for me,to see what it is like.Will I see you there Mary?Will seagulls call outinto the emptinessof their of their new blue home?

So I speak to you,mother, father.watch over me,Call me from thelong stretch of whitewinter painwhere I look forward to nothing,to someplaceof far cliffs and humpbacked mountainswhere you wait for me still.

(c) Linda Benninghoff

(c) Ian Pyper

Five Leaves

Soon I will need all the silenceof this morning to shield me:snow falling through emptiness,the last five leaves on a tree, abrupt in the sky,like five flat hands, gathering whiteness.I am growing very patient inside,and I am going farover some shaking emptiness,till I can come back,needing this silent morning.

(c) Linda Benninghoff

Journeys

Today I come downto this place with nerveswhere last year the bluefishjumped over the sea.We threw lines to them,my father, brother and I,tightened our backsand pulled them toward us.They slid out of the sea,shivering.On dry land ,they looked up at uswith hardened eyessharp fin and tight mouths,knowing they did not belong to us.

Today the sea is empty.The crest shrivelsaway from the wave,like scraps of paperleft in a spiral notebookMy brother has moved away,my father and I speak rarely,and all summerthe fish have not jumpedeven for an evening.I think howeven after placingthe knife,the skin of bluefishon the dull newspaperlooks like tossed away silver,is wild still,and never ours.

(c) Linda Benninghoff

"Third Eye" (c) Tantra Bensko

"Portrait of My Daughter" (c) Craig Blair

Star Melancholy

I.Let me know you are there-just a twinkle of your eye.

Your mystery is so well hiddenby the turning of time.

Torment is sitting by the windowevery night.

I hope for a fingertip of comfort.You are my awe.

II.But weave not a melody.But weave not a melody.

III.Your magic shatters my heart.Embarked on a compulsive quest;

I look into spacetrying to catch my spell-caster.

A tiny streak of lighthit me headlong and I stumbled.

You are my wonder.But are you my answer?

IV.You don't exist yet you shine.I see the child in you; the death of eternity.

I wonder if you are, like Man,who adores mindless admiration?

I want to tell you so muchthat you, are my awe.

V.Shall Death be a veil for Immortality?There are secrets flowing in me.

When the summer leftI stood alonelonging for the yellow hairedsunlight entangling in leavesheaving oxygen, fillingmy chest with the love of a womanwhose arms like branchesreach for the blueblue sky, the rosy cloud,the great star party of midnightmountaintops.

My mind playing tricks on my eyesThat golden glow bringing me intoworlds of pumpkin coaches,Valkyrie in flight,neverlands that never were,yet so much more real thanwhat passes for day to day.

Sadness is beauty brought down by ugliness,truth succumbing to convenient lies.Joy is opening all the senses into thespectrum of beauty.No moderation,no limitation,no convenient structural captivity.Let the stars be shining beaconscalling us home.Let the wind be a magical cloak,the rain an exultation.Let the cold, dark night bea treasured, inspiring friend.

Let the night take me forwardInto everfulfilling fantasiesThe never empty cup,the magic wand/magic word,sprinkled with faery dust,toasted with the fine bubblesof celluloid champagne.Let us, the night and I, sneak off intoexotic adventure.Let us learn the secrets of the Moon and Stars,ancient runes and alchemical wonders.Let us play upon the backs of dragons,learning to fly,learning to breathe fire,learning to explore the mountainpeaksand caverns ofour cthonic fearsand spin them into gold.

The new day dawningit will encounter clouds and hailstorms,turbulence and destruction.It will be a day of startling showers andunsettled wind,of unreasoned painand empty solace.It will be a day to try our souls.But it will be a day of infinite possibilities.

Let my good friend, the night,join me in playto help prepare me for the day.Let the earth and fire and rain and windinfuse my spiritthat we all be fellow friendsin the new venturescoming with the light.